Month: June 2011

A few more rides recently. At the weekend, I did Kaimes Road twice and also Clermiston Road (both directions). Somehow, Clermiston Road looks more intimidating, but my gpx trail shows it’s a lot easier … maybe the kinks in Kaimes Road hides the true extent of the climb from you.

This evening, I revisited Arthurs Seat for the first time since training on Kaimes Road. Four times round in 53 minutes, average 151bpm. To my surprise, the road gates close at 8.30pm which added some excitement to the last lap. However, catching sight of a guy on a singlespeed in the distance helped recover the time – he was fast and, I suspect, trying his best to not be caught. I used my heartrate monitor, which made it easy to stay within my limits. I think I probably can push a bit harder on the start of the climb, but really need to remember to dial it down when the hill gets steep.

Ho hum, I definitely need to make some concrete plans to find longer hills to train on. Long + steep + cycleable doesn’t seem to be all that common. The road south out of Aberfeldy fits the bill. Falkland hill is probably worthwhile too, and nearer.

Today, four times up Kaimes Road. A total ascent of 280m = 1/4 of an Alpe D’huez. First and last climbs were in my lowest gear, and the middle two were in my second gear. I managed okay in second gear, but didn’t feel like pushing much beyond that. First gear is a fairly straightforward spin. Practising climbing in higher gears makes sense from a training point of view, but the reason I tried it out was to show some solidarity with Frank who joined me on the first two climbs … on his singlespeed mountain bike. He’s completely mad, in an impressive kind of a way.